A la Mary Poppins!

Dragon Mood? -- smiling as I remember

I dreamt last night that I was back at my former employer, working on a temporary, contract status. It was Friday afternoon and I watched all my former colleagues walk out, heading home for the weekend.

I stayed until after four o'clock, got my coat and walked out. Outside it was winter and there were huge embankments of snow piled up and pushed up against tall white factory building walls. I started walking on one of these embankments, not seeing a way to get to my car. The embankment narrowed and narrowed until I had no choice other than to slide down it or turn around and retrace my steps. A la Mary Poppins, I lifted my arm above my head (unfortunately, sans umbrella) and stepped/slid down the steep wall of snow as though it were nothing. I remember feeling very pleased with myself that I wasn't afraid or hesitant.

As I got in my car, I suddenly remembered that I would be camping next week by the lake and gee, I didn't tell anyone at work about this. I mulled it over for a few minutes and decided, "Hey, they laid me off once, what do I have to be afraid of? I'm going camping."

A pretty cavalier attitude about a job to be sure, but then again, it WAS a dream!

Warm air, gentle drone

Dragon Mood? -- slighty sweaty and relaxed

As the granddaughter of a farmer, I feel compelled to give a weather report. It's partly cloudy, warm, higher humidity than the past couple of days and almost no breeze to keep us cool. Report done.

I'm sitting in the camper, mid-afternoon, trying to stay cool and taking a 'break' from my sudoku to write. S and her mom are outside at the picnic table, talking. I've experienced this many times before with the two of them, where they are tete-a-tete, head-to-head, conversing intently, me slightly removed but within earshot. There is something profoundly pleasing and comforting listening to the up-and-down pitch of their conversation, the drone of it, if you will. I don't know if it reminds me of my mother and grandmother when I was a little girl or what other emotional dynamic it taps, but I find it oddly comforting -- like all is right with the world.

S called her mom this morning and invited her out for a late breakfast. She cooked thick-sliced bacon in the electric skillet (don't even ask about the saturated fats we ate!) and then a small carton of southwestern-flavored Egg Beaters. Just typing it makes me laugh -- what a meal of nutritional and dietary contradictions! Nevertheless, the eggs and bacon were outstanding, improved only by the fresh air and the lakeside vista. Sally brought some large naval oranges and a ruby-red grapefruit which she cut up and we then happily slurped and sucked up all their sweet juices.

This IS a relaxing vacation. After all the preparation and grunt work required to get ready, I'm starting to think it may have been worth it. Beyond minimal maintenance tasks around the camper, I'm doing as little as possible. My goal? To get bored out of my gourd. :-)

In camping heaven

Dragon Mood? -- incredibly relaxed

Here is my current view: sitting at a picnic table, a dozen tall pine trees to my left, pop-up camper to my right, straight ahead the cool, rippling waters of Otsego Lake.

S and I are camping here for several days, taking a break from the rat race. It is incredibly beautiful here, warm breezes, sunny skies and this gorgeous lake to behold. I feel very lucky to be here with S, enjoying so much pleasure and beauty. I am taking a vacation from beating myself up on my employment status. It feels good!

More later.

It's ALL about the Lists!

Dragon Mood? -- memory smoked & singed on the edges

Big list, little list AND a list for the weekend. Oy vey!

S and I are taking four days to do some camping next week. Then we are visiting some friends who have an eye-popping view of Lake Michigan from their living room windows. We all enjoy bridge, never get to play bridge and ARE GOING TO play bridge with one another! Yeah!

I got ahead of myself. So, the lists, big and small, are to ensure that I get everything done that I need to, pack this, turn off that, send this bill, pick up that item. Another OY VEY!

Goodreads

Dragon Mood? -- pleased

Housekeeping note. I just added a widget for Goodreads, a web app that enables you to catalog the books you've read, are reading and hope to read. Then, it prompts you to share those with others. I LIKE it!

Mary's bookshelf: read




More of Mary's books »

Employers, I am STILL USEFUL!

Dragon Mood? -- hovering between discouragement, anger and resignation

Reading various articles on this sunny Friday morning, I found another that spells out what I've been experiencing and suspecting.

Here's an excerpt of the article from Yahoo Finance:

... Millions of workers who have already been unemployed for months, if not years, will most likely remain that way even as the overall job market continues to improve [my emphasis], economists say. The occupations they worked in, and the skills they currently possess, are never coming back in style. And the demand for new types of skills moves a lot more quickly than workers — especially older and less mobile workers — are able to retrain and gain those skills.
...
Additionally, the unemployment numbers show a notable split in the labor pool, with most unemployed workers finding jobs after a relatively short period of time, but a sizable chunk of the labor force unable to find new work even after months or years of searching. This group — comprising generally older workers [my emphasis] — has pulled up the average length of time that a current worker has been unemployed to a record high of 33 weeks as of April. The percentage of unemployed people who have been looking for jobs for more than six months is at 45.9 percent, the highest in at least six decades.

In one of those ironic, laughable-but-not-funny ways, this article, entitled "In a Job Market Realignment," describes how peoples' lives are being derailed and hurt by corporate actions. Kind of like 'downsizing'. It sounds so innocuous, doesn't it? Not when you consider that downsizing means people can't pay for healthcare coverage, frequently lose their homes, may have to visit food banks. Not innocuous at all.

You know how today it's not cool to be negative, spout off negative feelings or anything smacking of sour grapes? Simply NOT COOL. My brain is moving the words around, like puzzle pieces, attempting to find a PC way of saying this:

My current status as a JOBSEEKER unfortunately is simply a result of a JOB MARKET REALIGNMENT. ArrrrghHH!

Reading

Dragon Mood? -- antsy to read

Just a quick, housekeeping note that I added a list, "Books I'd LIKE to Read," to the column on the right. My to-do reading list is GROWING! I need to get at it!

The Way We're Working isn't Working

Dragon Mood? -- a sense of 'my' truth being spoken?

From Wall Street, to the lagging economy, to Greece and the "euro zone," to our broken regulatory system, to the high-speed computer trading system that might have played a role in last week's mini-meltdown in the stock market, to those two wars we're still in a decade later, it's clear that something is wrong. End of quote.

This quote, from a Huffington Post article, promotes the book, The Way We're Working Isn't Working. It's written by Tony Schwartz and Jean Gomes.

Here's what caught my eye about the book: our society, our world is operating under the myth that "human beings operate most productively in the same one-dimensional way computers do: continuously, at high speeds, for long periods of time, running multiple programs at the same time." That's a MYTH, not a statement of prescription.

Schwartz and Gomes go on to say however, that our basic survival instincts are to renew our energy. We're good at spending it and not so good at renewing it.

So, our culture tells us to go faster and faster, work 24/7, always be connected, checking emails, blah-blah-blah. Meanwhile, what we REALLY need is downtime. Time to renew our energy. Time to recharge.

Is it any wonder that things feel so accelerated? Everybody on information overload? Everybody working crazy long hours?

And for me, personally, is it any wonder that this is yet ANOTHER brick in the wall barring me from employment? I'm in my late 50s. I don't have the energy of a 30-something, nor do I want it. I'm happy being who I am. Yet, corporate culture doesn't appear to have room or make room for a slower pace, for renewal, for recharging. NO ROOM.

Am I simply spewing sour grapes? Am I trying to justify my inability to get a job with some authors' hypotheses? Just between you and me, I don't think so.

Thursday

Dragon Mood? -- quiet

Thursday.

Cloudy, rainy weather.

Quiet.

Reflective.

Stillness.

Good.

Photoshop installed

Dragon Mood? -- excited

Sometimes, I hold off, waiting to do something when I should just jump in and do it. I just DID it!

One year as a Christmas gift, S gave me a copy of Photoshop. What a treat! Over the years, I have played and played inside of it, learning little bits here and there, accumulating knowledge. Words don't begin to convey my pleasure working with PS. It's just a phenomenal piece of software.

Anyway ... I finally installed it on my laptop, FINALLY! It's so much faster, more responsive than it was on the old dog desktop. I still have files I need to transfer but at least now, I've got Photoshop HERE where I'm spending most of my computer face time. Whoo-hoo, Yippee and a bunch of other jump-in-the-air exclamations!

Thirteen months & counting

Dragon Mood? -- struggling

To borrow from Mr. Rogers, it's a BEAUTIFUL day in the neighborhood... And that's where the loveliness ends.

I have been in the job market for 13 months now. Most people would agree that's a long time. While I don't publish these thoughts in my other more public blogs (which career gurus tell me prospective employers may look at), here I can tell you how difficult, tough and stressful it is to seek work unsuccessfully for so long.

The Huffington Post published an article full of grim statistics on the unemployed. Eighty percent of workers unemployed last summer are STILL out of work. Here's a quote from the original Rutgers report:

A dismal one in five (21%) of those looking for work in August of last year had found it by March of this year. Fully two-thirds (67%) remain unemployed and looking, with the remaining 12% having left the labor market. Of this 12%, more than half say they got discouraged and stopped looking, while the other half have turned their energies to different pursuits, such as school or parenting.

The stats are even more brutal for workers 50 and older: only 12% now have jobs. TWELVE percent! That OTHER 88%, well that's where I fall in. In and down and through the cracks. Ouch!

My neighbor, Jan, across the street, is also unemployed. She lost her job about six weeks before I did. Coincidentally, we are the same age. Coincidentally, we are both still unemployed after sending out countless resumes, networking, preliminary phone interviews, face-to-face interviews, second interviews and still no jobs. Is that a coincidence? Bad luck? We're just a couple of unemployable people after all these years of being employed? What???

I can't believe that both of us could go from being employed, competent, productive workers to unworthy, unemployable schmucks in such a short time. If we haven't changed, then the market has obviously changed. And it no longer has jobs for people like us, like me. And I'm not even sixty yet. What is that all about?

QOTD - April 30, 2010

Dragon Mood? -- like this

A quote that I've heard before and enjoyed:

Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.

— Margaret Thatcher, served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1979-1990

Well said!

Two to the Fifth Birthday

Dragon Mood? -- happily remembering this momentous day!

Two to the fifth, that's how old my baby boy is today. Two squared is four, two cubed is eight, two to the fourth is 16 and two to the fifth is ... THIRTY-TWO!

Happy 32nd Birthday, Josh!

Adding to my book pile

Dragon Mood? -- excited

Taking myself out for a BIG adventure today, I went to the local used bookstore. It's a bookstore right out of a movie, long and narrow, bookshelves to the ceiling, books piled up everywhere. The lone person in the store, a slight, professorial-looking man, greeted me, my book list in hand.

"Do you have your books on a computerized list," I asked.

He replied by tapping the side of his head.

"Wow!" I sighed.

He took my list and turned on his heel. I followed behind. He led me from one book to the next, pulling them off packed shelves with surprising speed.

Here are my NEW used books:

• The Biography of Alice B. Toklas by Linda Simon
• Genius, The Life and Science of Richard Feynman by James Gleick
• A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
• Amazing Grace, A Vocabulary of Faith by Kathleen Norris

And now, I have a confession to make.  As I write this post, copying Amazon links to the books, I suddenly realize that the Alice B. Toklas biography I bought is not the autobiography by Gertrude Stein.  Uh-oh!  That's what I thought I was buying.  Silly me.  Well, I suspect I'll still enjoy reading it.

And before diving into any of them, the one I'm most looking forward to is the Kathleen Norris book.

But first, I will finish The Known World by Leonard P. Jones.  I only started it a couple of nights ago and I still have most of the novel to read.  It's an interesting book about a black man who owned slaves in Virginia of the 1850s.  I am enjoying reading his prose.

Quiet Monday

Dragon Mood? -- reflecting on where I'm at

S and I had a good weekend. Sunday afternoon, she commented that she was dreading the work week. And while I listened, I thought to myself, though unemployed, there are things that make me dread this coming work week too.

My unemployment preoccupies my thoughts almost like someone's death, a shocking, unexpected event that echoes and reverberates still throughout almost everything I do. Even after ONE YEAR, I can hardly not think about it.

This preoccupation didn't happen overnight. I initially thought that if I simply did the responsible and necessary things, a job would come my way. I was prepared for it to be long and hard. I honestly didn't prepare myself to be unemployed for more than a year though.

If and when I'm not preoccupied, then I feel this dull numbness, like I'm only half alive. I hate to admit it, but I'm feeling this way more and more.

My confidence is sagging. Things I wouldn't have a given a second thought to nine months ago, now I find myself questioning, "Can you really do that?" If I see a position that sounds interesting with duties or responsibilities that are outside my experience, I find myself thinking, "Well, that eliminates me," or "They won't consider me now." It angers me that I'm thinking like this and yet I find myself doing it over and over again.

I catch myself wanting to whine, "All I want is a little job working on reports or spreadsheets." I think I'm feeling little, diminished, whittled down. Certainly the words, "worn down" fit. I feel utterly worn down by this unemployment.

Today, rather than being hard on myself, I gave myself permission to be gentle, to feel quiet, to feel worn down. After S left for work, I went back to bed and slept another two hours because I was tired. I sketched and drew for over an hour. I took a long hot shower, washed my hair and enjoyed the simple sensations of getting clean. I checked my email once today, but closed it up rather than checking hourly as I usually do.

This afternoon, I was a bit more productive. I paid some bills, went to an ATM and did some money transfers, bought a few groceries, put together some soup in the crock pot and went through mail. I gathered up recycling and put out the trash at curbside, ready for tomorrow morning.

All in all, a quiet Monday.

Relating to an infographic

Dragon Mood? -- intrigued

One of the advantages of Twitter is that I do run across a myriad of web resources that I otherwise would never encounter. Below is one example.

This is an infographic created by Jess Bachman, a freelance graphic designer. I'm rather intrigued by infographics, so I decided to incorporate it into my blog posting rather than simply link to it. His Flickr download was so illegible, I have linked to the Mint.com version.

As a person who's been in the job market for over a year, this is SUCH a relevant graphic! I think the points he makes about unemployment are apt and dead on. I see myself in that infographic.

Food Revolution

Dragon Mood? -- enthused -- sign up TODAY!

With childhood obesity and diabetes rates skyrocketing, join with Jamie Oliver and thousands of other concerned Americans to fight for our kids' health.

Sign up for Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

QOTD - April 20, 2010

Dragon Mood? -- pondering

Poking around on a website devoted to typography, I found this quote in a beautiful calligraphy format.

"None of us knows what the next change is going to be, what unexpected opportunity is just around the corner, waiting a few months or a few years to change all the tenor of our lives."
— Kathleen Norris

Texas in springtime

Dragon Mood? -- tired by the trip, intoxicated by the beauty

We're just back from a trip to Texas. My dad would love his portion of the farm to look like 'Post Oak Savannah'. Here's one example of how beautiful it can be in the spring.

This photo was taken by Eric Pronske on Flickr.

Sticky gum

Dragon Mood? -- talking a good game of encouragement to myself

Have you ever stepped on a particularly sticky piece of gum and then simply been unable to get it off your shoe? That's the feeling of discouragement, inertia and almost depression I've been experiencing the past two weeks. I can't get rid of it!

Today I opened the Detroit Free Press website, the "Freep," and a small circle popped up asking if I'd take a survey. It was small enough and polite enough that I actually clicked on it. What to my surprise that this survey was created by a marketing firm that I had a phone interview with just two weeks ago. It was about printers of all things, the ones you have hooked up to your computer or laptop. Coincidence or what?

After completing the two or three minute survey, I realized the universe had just given me the message that I should NOT grieve acquiring that particular position. Though I REALLY want a job, how boring to write questions for marketing surveys on printers?!? Thanks, but no thanks.